Star Trek: Lower Decks review, Episode 405: Naked Launch

Every Star Trek franchise goes through this awkward phase: the crew starts swinging from the chandeliers, swords are pulled, hair and pimples start growing in funny places…Star Trek: Lower Decks has finally hit puberty. The newest episode, “Empathalogical Fallacies” is Lower Decks’ version of “The Naked Time” from The Original Series, “The Naked Now” from The Next Generation or “Fascination” from Deep Space Nine.

Who’s to blame this time? The Betazoids or the Vulcans? The episode starts with T’Lyn trying to get a message out to the Vulcan High Command, begging for reinstatement on her Vulcan ship, the Sh’vhal. Unfortunately, there is a communications blackout, so the message is trapped with her on the Cerritos for as long as they’re transporting a contingent of Betazoid diplomats.

The diplomats are en route from Angel 1 to Risa, and they want to keep the party going. Mariner is determined to bond with T’Lyn and to get the Vulcan to let loose a little. Once they arrive at the ship’s canteen, it seems like there’s more than Romulan Ale making the crew go nuts. So the obvious conclusion is drawn: Zanthi fever (which affects Betazoids of a certain age) must be spreading empathic energy across the crew!

Star Trek: Lower Decks review, Episode 405: “Empathological Fallacies”

When Captain Freeman confronts the Betazoids, they take her and the rest of the bridge crew hostage. Turns out these Betazoids are from the Beta-Zed Intelligence Agency, but they are not infected with Zanthi fever, merely the victims of T’Lyn’s Bendii syndrome. Captain Freeman has a particularly clever moment where she fakes a memory of one of the Betazoids talking about another behind their back, thus sowing division between them.

As emotions run high on the upper decks, Rutherford recommends Boimler for “the program” with Shax and the security team deeper within the ship. “The program” seems to be security team training, but mostly involves Worf-based slam poetry and Odo-based charades. It turns out that Shax considers the crew’s holistic well-being to be part of his mission, and this was just a distraction to give Boimler a bit of a break.

The Betazoid agents provide Freeman with an image of the mysterious ship that’s been destroying various ships in most of the cold opens so far this season. After the destructions of Klingon, Romulan, and Orion ships, now the Cerritos is in pursuit of the oddly badge-shaped ship at the center of the mystery. Could the season-long story finally be coming into focus?

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